History & Values

Our History

The Laura Centre is now the sole project of the charity COPE. Gail and Harry Moore founded COPE in 1988. COPE’s initial work focused on providing a range of services for children with cancer and their families. This work led directly to the creation of the COPE children’s oncology unit (ward 27) at the Leicester Royal Infirmary, as well as the creation and funding of two children’s community Macmillan nurses and contributing to haematological research. The work initiated by COPE contributed to a significant shift in awareness of families’ needs and most of these services are now funded by the NHS. Gail and Harry went on to start a separate charity that created Rainbows children’s hospice.

Following the sad death of their daughter Laura from Leukaemia, Gail and Harry became acutely aware of the lack of support for families bereaved of a child.

This led to them opening The Laura Centre in October 1991 to provide therapeutic support to anyone bereaved of a child or young person. In 1994 our service was extended to include support for children bereaved of a parent or carer.

The Laura Centre saw 80 people in the first year it opened and has steadily grown since. We currently support more than 400 people every year.

In 2005 we expanded into no. 6 Tower Street. In September 2006 two building nos. 4 and 6 Tower Street were joined together so that we could have one reception and waiting room. This has made the Centre more accessible with the creation of a downstairs counselling room and disabled access toilet. In addition we were able to move our Quiet Room to the ground floor to make it more accessible.

Our Values

Our aim is to be friendly and easily accessible as well as professional. A death in the family of a child or parent, is a devastating and traumatic loss. The support we offer recognises the lifelong impact of such a loss and that there are no easy answers. Working together we hope to be able to help each individual find their own way to cope.

We are committed to:

offering our services in a family orientated, approachable and welcoming environment

providing free open ended therapeutic support to our users

respecting the uniqueness of the experience of bereavement for each individual

understanding the spiritual, cultural and emotional aspects of bereavement

continually developing our services in order to respond to the needs of our users

providing a service of the highest professional standard working within the guidelines of the professional therapeutic bodies -the United Kingdom Council of Psychotherapy and the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy

Vision Statement

Latest News

Referral worker/receptionist Part-time As first point of contact to the service, the ideal candidate will be comfortable with handling sensitive and often distressing information and used to dealing with members of the public, both in person and over the telephone. The post also involves a wide range of administrative tasks and excellent IT skills as […]

This is what you have been waiting for – the dates for the 2018 Colour Blast Dash events have now been confirmed. The Leicester event will take place on Sunday 29th April at Victoria Park, Derby will be on 13th May at Darley Park and Coventry will be on 20th May at The War Memorial park. You […]